Beijing, China - In exactly one year the IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015 will commence. IAAF President Lamine Diack who is presently in China attending the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, flew into Beijing today to attend the ‘One Year Countdown Ceremony’. President Diack was joined by Wang Anshun, Mayor of the Beijing Municipal Government and Liu Peng, China’s Minister of Sport Administration Bureau and President of the Chinese Olympic Committee, along with other distinguished national and city officials representing the member federation and local organising committee. The IAAF delegation at the ceremony also included General Secretary Essar Gabriel. A giant countdown clock was unveiled outside the National Stadium, better known as the world famous ‘Bird’s Nest’ which hosted the 2008 Olympic Games. The stadium will be the venue for the nine-day championships from 22 to 30 August 2015.

Introduced at the public ceremony were the official Championships poster and mascot. “China is the emerging super power of athletics,” commented President Diack. “For me, this is a source of satisfaction because I came myself to China in the 1970s to help China return to the IAAF Family. This happened in 1978 and, since then, the strength of athletics in this vast country of one billion people has steadily grown.” “The IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015, will further inspire the youth of China and Asia to take part in Athletics. This will be the greatest legacy of these Championships.”Click on the following links to view: - ‘One-year-to-go’ ceremony – report, photographs plus the poster design and mascot - Full speech of IAAF PresidentIAAF launches Chinese edition of SPIKES and social media SPIKES (spikes.iaaf.org) has been part of the IAAF website since February this year and with one year to go until the World Championships in Beijing, it marks the perfect moment for SPIKES to embrace the passion China has for our sport. SPIKES China (spikescn.iaaf.org) will help build excitement leading into the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China next March and then on to Beijing and beyond. SPIKES China will also make its mark on popular Chinese social networks such as Instagram, Sina Weibo, a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook (http://weibo.com/u/3860583602), and Tencent Weibo (http://t.qq.com/Spikeszhongguo). In addition, SPIKES China will be active on WeChat (ID: SpikesChina), a popular app available for all smartphones that allows activities such as text, voice and broadcast messaging as well as the sharing of photographs and videos. WeChat has 300 million users, with 70 million outside of China.